Will this week’s Comprehensive Spending Review reward Birmingham’s good faith and generate growth?
The results of the chancellor’s Comprehensive Spending Review this week were unknown as Focus went to press. But the word on the street in Birmingham is that the amount of cash the government will make available to the UK’s 39 Local Enterprise Partnerships will be somewhat less than the £72bn that former cabinet minister turned government adviser Lord Heseltine was hoping for.
When I interviewed Heseltine in March it was clear he believed that self-determination by local people and local businesses would drive regional growth, and that he was delighted by Greater Birmingham & Solihull LEP’s proactive response to his No Stone Unturned report. Its offer to pilot his recommendations – now known as the Greater Birmingham Project – has certainly concentrated business minds in Britain’s second city.
Heseltine said local areas need to take more responsibility for their own growth. Birmingham seems to have delivered on this front, taking a truly comprehensive approach to regeneration and urban renewal.
In this year alone, there have been a number of key announcements about major projects where the city is pivotal in their success, including the launch in February of its City Centre Enterprise Zone which will provide up to £1.2bn of investment, as well as delivering 13m sq ft of new floorspace across its 26 sites.
Two weeks ago Birmingham airport was thrust into the spotlight after announcing its 30-year vision for expansion, including a £70m runway extension which could wrest further capacity away from London’s overstretched Heathrow airport.
And just last week, an Arup-led consortium unveiled a masterplan on behalf of the GBSLEP and Solihull council, which envisages 13m sq ft of development by 2040 for the area between Birmingham airport and the NEC. The special-purpose vehicle known as UK Central will procure and deliver schemes and accelerate planning, funding and implementation.
Couple these projects with infrastructure improvements such as the ongoing £600m redevelopment of New Street Station due to complete in 2015 and the proposed £32bn HS2 high-speed rail link which will have an interchange station close to the airport site as well as a terminus in the city’s Eastside regeneration zone, and you have a potential economic powerhouse.
Success isn’t guaranteed though, and will require funding to see it through. The private sector will play its part in providing some of the cash. But the government needs to release the public purse strings that will in turn unlock that private sector capital.
Birmingham has admirably fulfilled its side of the bargain. The question after the CSR is: Has the Treasury?
